Worm Butt

Let me just start off by saying that my family is a bunch of psychopaths.  They must take after me and my side.

Anyways, the day started fairly normal, with a 5:30 alarm, so I could get up and do some work before waking the kids to head to a 9:00 am Saturday soccer game for Kacy.  I booted up the computer and started to work.  Well, I meant to work.  I poured my coffee, grabbed a blanket and snuggled into my computer chair with the best intentions of writing.  Not this kind of writing; the kind that actually has a paycheck at the end of each week.

My first mistake was that I checked my e-mail.  This is never a good idea when I actually intend to work because it seems to be a huge portal to the other side.  By the time I have made the mistake of logging on and checking my e-mail, whether I have gotten a message or not, I am automatically sucked in to the vortex of online communication.  This is how it usually progresses: Hotmail leads to E-bay; E-bay leads to Amazon; Amazon leads to  MySpace; MySpace leads to a Google search that I've been trying to remember to do; Google leads to PaperBackSwap; PaperBackSwap leads to another Google search; Google search number 2 usually leads to online banking to check and see how much money I might have; online banking leads to Quicken; Quicken leads to my checkbook to enter yesterday's transactions; the overview of my checkbook on Quicken leads to the realization that we can't afford squat...ever; this realization leads to a serious chiding of my inner self for being so easily distracted and not putting in more hours of work in order to make more money last week; this personal chiding leads to a glance at the clock; the glance at the clock leads to; shit!  My hour of work was over at this point.

I threw off the blanket, chugged the last ½ cup of slime that was hot coffee an hour earlier, and trudged to the shower.  The shower was pleasant enough if you don't take into account the fact that in order to stand upright in our bathtub, one's knees must touch and their toes point toward each other.  Our old cast-iron tub is extremely narrow, with steeply slanted sides.  Thank goodness it's only big enough for one person because the pigeon-toed chicken-walker look would be one serious mood killer for any amorous shower sharers.

I showered, dressed, threw some gel in my hair and added a micro-burst of makeup to my face, while still saving enough time to wake and dress the kids and heat breakfast for the truck ride.  I showed up to the soccer field 25 minutes before kick-off!  I even beat Tradd there, and received the comment, "Wow, how'd you beat me here?"  Yes!  This is a first for me with three kids in tow.

While some friends of ours watched with us from the sidelines, Cameron kept them entertained by telling them all about her future husband, Baby Thomas.  She told them she would marry him and he was "tute," and she likes to "tiss" him, which translates as Thomas is cute and she likes to kiss him.  It is all very innocent since she recently saw him and she likes kissing little blue-eyed babies who are as big around as they are tall, but it was still amusing.

Kacy's team was totally annihilated, but she did a fantastic job of jogging after the ball while everyone else kicked it.  And while it appeared as though she really didn't understand the sport, I happen to know that she was simply concentrating very hard on her manners.  She was going to keep up with the ball no matter where it went, but she was certain not to kick the ball until it kicked her first.  It happened once or twice too, but foot-to-ball contact never happened within range of the goal; the other team's goal that is.  Most of the game was played within five feet of our goal.  Oh well, it was a great lung workout for me so early in the morning.  Mostly I stuck with the phrase, "Kacy, KICK the ball, don't just smile at it!"

After the game, Kacy became listless and sneezy.  Now, by listless I don't mean that she was seriously ill and bordering on comatose.  I simply mean that she could sit still.  For Kacy, this is usually a Herculean effort.  I asked her if she felt okay.  She said that she did, but moms just know when things are not right.

While Kacy and Cameron napped, I sat on the bed with Kacy and made myself do some work, real work, on my computer.  After about two hours, Storm came to ask me something and started freaking out because she found a worm on her arm.  She screamed, panicked, ran for the bathroom and proceeded to scrub for about 2 minutes, during which she kept up a continuous tirade on how much she hates tapeworms and fleas and she can't even cuddle with her cat without some disgusting nasty worm crawling out of its butt and sticking to her arm.  After Storm's venting and scrubbing session had ended, her cat was promptly delivered to the back porch, to live merrily with her worms until we can get some dewormer.   Aside from her intestinal parasite colony, Claire still has other company out there too.  Kacy's cat, Miss Scarlett, has been residing on the back porch for the past 3 days, awaiting the same worming fate.  She has affectionately been dubbed "Worm Butt" by the family, so who knows what fun title we will manage to come up with for Claire.

I was completely disgusted at this point, so I decided to go online and find out if dewormers can be purchased over the counter.  I opened Firefox and thankfully my personal portal opened and transported me to the other side as I searched site after site for advice, products, customer reviews and nearest locations.  By the time I had decided on a product, Tradd was home from his overtime shift, Kacy was lying still on the couch and was definitely sick, Worm Butt and Bottom Crawler were yowling from the back porch, and I was gagging at the nasty tapeworm and flea problems that are indicative of life in the South.

After taking a family vote, it was decided that we would all wait and head to the closest pet store in a neighboring town the next day and that Storm, Cameron and I would go to the grocery store just up the road for a few items before dinner time.  The grocery shopping trip went fine, except that Cameron started in with, "Need to bee, Momma," just as I was strapping her back into the car seat.  This is Cameron-speak for, "I needed to pee five minutes ago and I'm just now telling you!"  I can't stand public restrooms and there were too many people moving around in the parking lot to let her pee on the ground, so I told her to wait and we headed up the road to grab some Duke's Barbeque to take home for the sicko kiddo who was apparently starving.

Storm was yammering nonstop and Cameron was continuously pounding my seat with her feet and chanting, "Bee!  Bee!  Bee!" as we pulled into the drive-through at Duke's.  I pushed the pause button by hollering, "Quiet so I can order!" then rolled down the window to look at the menu for a few seconds.  The nice lady inside Duke's slid back the window right away with a friendly, "Hi.  What can I get for you?"  As I started to speak over the increasingly loud stream of, "Momma, need to bee," from the back seat, I heard the nastiest sound emanate from the passenger seat beside me.  I figured the lady at Duke's had heard it too because she grinned even bigger while I sat there, staring dumbly at the menu with my mouth hanging open to place an order.  My mind was going into overdrive reassuring myself, no, Storm really did NOT rip one of her nasty, cheek-slapping, drunken sailor farts in front of this nice lady trying to take our food order.  At this point, I probably resembled the lady in the last seat of the big white van, but I recovered after a few seconds and turned to look at Storm.  I figured that if she was going to pull a stunt like that, I was going to place full blame on her so that the lady would at least know that I was not the totally disgusting one.

"What was that?" I asked rather loudly.  Storm was trying her hardest to stifle laughter and I was again at a loss.  I was ready to reprimand her for doing this in public and at the same time, ready to give her a high five for the depth and resonance she had so clearly worked hard to achieve.  I tossed her the phone and said, "Call your daddy to find out what he wants."  Laughing, Storm picked up the phone and called.  With her movement, I saw the edge of a deer grunt sticking up from the seat beside her.  I reached over, snatched it up and threw it on the dash board telling her, "Don't you ever blow that stupid thing while I'm at a drive-through window ever again!"  Storm's giggle took on a maniacal quality at this point and Cameron ratcheted it up a couple decibels with the added phrase, "Bee my bants, Momma!  Need to bee!"  Thankfully the lady behind the counter was very polite and must have known what a deer grunt was and apparently what it sounded like too, because she nodded her head and said, "Oh," while laughing at the special family gathered in the big blue truck.

When we had finally ordered, paid, received our food and floored it out of there, we headed for home at warp speed.  Between Bilo and Duke's, we had managed to gather food for the whole family, including the sicko at home, bisser bants in the back seat, deer grunt butt beside me, our Doberman, and even another bag of cat food to feed all four of the cats and their collective gathering of intestinal parasites...wouldn't want them to starve.   My only rule as I sped home was that if we got pulled over by the friendly police officer for going over the speed limit, Cameron could not whiz on the nice officer's shoes.  This rule sent Storm into another maniacal fit of laughter, but Cameron's persistence was seriously pushing me over the edge of sanity at this point.

We finally made it home, Cameron "beed," and dinner was Duke's, so it was great, except for the fact that one of the orders was wrong.  Duke's never gets orders wrong, so I had to place responsibility for this mistake on the constant distraction that my family provided the poor lady at the drive-through window.

While I was loading the day's dishes into the dishwasher, Storm and Kacy started a frantic screaming fit at the windows to the back porch.  The only words I could make out were "Scarlett" and "saw."  As I dried my hands and stifled my own visions of power saws and kitten curiosity, Tradd started laughing.  It turned out that Miss Scarlett had somehow jumped to a ledge just under the roof of the back porch.  We have several quarts of oil stored up there and an old, 4-foot-long ice saw hanging there as decoration.  Yes, I know, only someone whose daughter plays with a deer grunt would have saws as decorations.  The kitten had done what kittens do and had gotten stuck.

Now, I could have just waited for her to jump down, but I envisioned her landing, limping and requiring a trip to an emergency vet with weekend night time hours and insane prices to fix a broken leg.  At least we could get some wormer there, but I decided we needed to save ourselves some money by getting her down from there before she jumped.  Since my fireman husband whom my children affectionately refer to as "Hero Guy" had lost interest and was floating around in some unreachable place on the other side of the internet portal, I was on my own.  I was up to the challenge though.  Granted I do everything else for this family except rescue life and limb, but I wanted to have some affectionate, awe-inspiring name like "Hero Mom" too.  Yup, I am totally immature and jealous of Tradd's elevated status in our children's eyes at times.  I figure this is natural for most women though and it's a thought that comforts me some, so please don't tell me otherwise.

I flipped on the light switch to the back porch and marched outside with the encouragement of my girls to cheer me on.  I saw that there were some storage bins under this shelf that had not yet been stored back in the shed.  I formed a plan in my head that went something like this: climb on a bin, reach up and gently get cuddly Worm Butt who would be so happy and relieved that she would nuzzle me affectionately on the way down.  Step off the bin to the uproarious cheers of my daughters and place Worm Butt in Kacy's arms, while she sings, "She's a hero!  She's a mom!"  The plan was formed, so the time for action had arrived.

Worm Butt had stopped looking for a way down and was watching me curiously.  I stepped up on the bin and looked back at the smiling, hopeful faces of my girls.  What angels I have.  I turned back to the cat and stood up to my full height to reach for her.  This was where my plans were altered and my dream of being Hero Mom was shattered.  Unfortunately when I had turned on the back porch lights to see the cat better, I had forgotten that we even had a freaking ceiling fan back there too.  I remembered it pretty quickly as the blades whacked my forehead, ripped at my curls and nearly sent me backwards off of the storage bin.  Now I was envisioning myself going to the doctor to fix a broken limb, but at least I have medical insurance.  I managed to recover and balance on the bin again in a stooped position.  I shouted to Storm, "Turn off the light!"  Storm stared at me like I was crazy and I spelled it out for her slowly.  "Turn.  Off.  The.  Light."  She reached inside the back porch door and pushed the old-fashioned light button.  When the fan had almost slowed to a stop I stood again to go for the cat.  Apparently Storm thought I would need more light, so she pushed the switch again flooded the porch with light and I instantly ducked to avoid another tangle with the fan blades.  I politely yelled, "Turn it OFF, not ON!" and Storm switched it off again.  I was thinking that it would be a good thing to specify that she should leave it off; when I noticed the girls' eyes migrate from me to the cat on the ledge.

While bent at a 90 degree angle facing away from Scarlett, I swiveled my head around to look and see what was wrong.  Nothing was wrong though.  Worm Butt Scarlett had decided she was tired of waiting on me to rescue her and she was taking matters into her own paws.  She had found something to jump on and was wiggling her body in preparation for the death-defying spring from the saw ledge.  When I followed her eyes though, I realized that the landing pad Worm Butt had found was my flattened back.  Before I could move out of the way or stop her, she sprung; body long, paws spread, and claws visibly extended for increased gripping action upon landing.  "Oh shit, this is gonna hurt," I thought to myself, but I stayed quiet.  The girls however, didn't feel the need for silence and screamed in terror at Kacy's Kitty Kneivel Leap of Death.  Somehow, I really don't remember how, the cat was off of my back and safe in Kacy's arms.

I walked back in the house and stared at Tradd on the computer.  He finally looked up and said, "What?"  Prick.  Next time, our resident fireman's going to have to be the one to rescue the kitty.  He's going to get the song sung for him anyways, even if I do complete a rescue mission, so why should I bother?  Besides that, I don't want to rob him of the opportunity.  Because at this rate, that's going to be the only kitty he'll be granted access to for a while.